Summer evening

   Summer takes us to another environment, if we let it.  Chris and I sat in the gazebo last night after we ate leftovers, and watched the birds taking turns at the feeder and the fountain that burbles in the middle of their bath.  They were unconscious of our presence because we were still and silent.  How often are we thus?  When do we sit and watch the world go about its business in our own back yard?  As it grew dim, the lightening bugs began to transform the shadows into flickering corners of elven magic, gentle and just beyond clear sight.  You see?  Another environment.  These summer evenings are seductive.  They invite us to lay down our labor and appreciate what the breezes bring, the sounds only heard if we are silent, the lights too twinkling to see in the glare of normality. 
   Don't be afraid.  There is no waste here.  Evening comes.  There, did you hear the owl?

Community

There’s a willow tree I planted in a pot near the fence in my back yard.  It’s grown well for a couple years, but the clear, hot days of July seem to be baking its roots.  I soaked it but realized that the sun would still play havoc, heating the dirt in the pot beyond reasonably healthy temperatures.  So I dragged a couple other potted plants over, creating a bunch, protecting the willow and at least one side of each of the protectors. 

   We’re made to run in bunches, packs if you will.  Like wolves we are built to protect and help each other.  Our instincts all lead us toward each other, give us empathy and reward us with the advantages of civilization, art, philosophy, science, technology, architecture, and baseball, not to mention families, education, medical care, love songs, and the Super Bowl.  We’re tied together by more than choices or ought’s or should’s.  Deep within us is a magnet that pulls us toward each other, leads us to make friends, build families, and communities.

   I find it ludicrous if not a bit dangerous for us to preach individualism.  We just aren’t built that way.  And alone we are likely to fall to the vicissitudes of day to day living.  Just ask the willow tree in my back yard.  Besides, the geraniums and sunflowers make the whole thing more colorful.

Awards

   On the wall of what is affectionately known as ‘David’s Hole’ hangs an interesting collection of debris: mirrors (to keep the vampires in line), masks (offering various views into the souls of the artists), sculptures (from the crucified Christ to a commemorative bottle of bourbon (sadly empty), pictures of angels, a close up of a sculpture of a Madonna, an elderly woman walking past a grave yard, fishermen bringing boats onto the beach, waves breaking, the Giants winning the Super Bowl, a sea bird in flight, , Marilyn holding down her skirt,  the church where I grew up, the twin towers (lots a pictures).  Then there’s a shaggy doll of Gerry Garcia, a clay casting of an Assyrian battle plaque, a Chinese Dog, a Butterfly in a plastic case, a muskrat’s skull, an amethyst geode, a silver trophy given to my father for being first in his class in high school, crossed foils, my high School varsity letter, two bronze medals for college fencing, a nautical map of a section of the Maine coastline, Ethiopian spear heads, a fork made by my grandfather, a brass fire nozzle, homemade knives (not by me), a Goofy hat from Disney World, a Celtic cross covered with fish and sea monsters, a whale tooth, a dragon claw (novel in the works), a cork board, a hanging plant, and a ton of books (or at least half a ton).  There are other things I haven’t mentioned, awards given in honor of some things I did along the way. 

   Awards are nice.  They say nice things.  They bring back memories.  They remind us that somebody is watching and appreciating.  But in some ways all the ‘debris’ on the walls and shelves of my ‘hole’ are awards.  They commemorate days lived, adventures come home from, glimmers of beauty and glory that lit my life. On my desk is a picture of my birth family with my kids, gathered on a sand dune just after my mother’s funeral, yelling at the camera, and next to it is a close up of my wife.  Are they awards?  More like blessings living outside of time forming me as surely as everything I’ve been recognized for and managed to collect. 

   All our lives have awards.  We just have to claim them and treasure them.  They are invested with the power of the moments that brought them into our lives.  Don’t be afraid of such debris.  I knew a guy who collected rocks.  Each one had a name that reminded him from where it came and what had happened in his life there.  It was a hard collection to move around.  We don’t need monuments.  We just need to appreciate the miracle of life as it comes to us and open ourselves to our role in it.    

   As Bobby Burns said:

                        I burned the candle at both ends, it did not last the night

                        But oh my foes and ah my friends, it gave a wondrous light.

Being a Patriot

   As a college sophomore, I was a wise fool.  Such is the fate of the young to be filled with a confidence to forge ahead and assume they have enough wisdom and energy to deal with the problems of the world without making the same mistakes that have been made before.  Energy there may be.  Seething torrents of it.   But wisdom?  Well, they do have the wisdom of the young.  Wisdom to claim happy endings.  Wisdom to believe we could be doing better.  Wisdom to face walls as obstacles rather than necessary additions to the land scape. So you see the paradox.  There is great wisdom and power in these possibilities.  And there is glory.  Ah glory. 

   So, armed and shackled with this paradox, I went forth from the ivory tower to face the bastion of entrenched darkness, home.  So the foolishness shows its gory face.  I wasn’t horrific, but close to it.  My parents looked forward to having me come and breathed in relief to have me go.  My local congregation had arranged a ‘Folk Service’ led by the ‘Young People’ complete with a ‘Dialogue Sermon.’  Talk about foolish.  It was 1967/68.  They were desperately trying to be relevant.  They were trying to see the upheavals around them with some perspective other than fear.  The stench of their burning center city was still fresh in memory.  The war in South East Asia was becoming a wound.  The young were not staying on the tracks so lovingly laid for them.  And the cacophony of Rock and Roll was swamping The Rat Pack, Rosemary, Bing, and Big Band Music in pounding rhythms and feedback.  Slick and pretty had become shaggy and bra-less.  Scotch and soda had been traded for pot and LSD.  And worst of all, the kids were protesting everything from cutting down trees to supporting the boys-over-there.  They had stopped being American.  Perhaps these church leaders who planned the dialogue service were a bit sophomoric themselves.  Or they were trying to build bridges.  It was a deep chasm. 

   The place was packed.  We played our songs, even had a sing along without incident.  But the dialogue sermon was loaded with tension.  The kids actually got honest about the war and a pervasive judgment on their life styles.  Finally one of the ‘older guys’ stood up and almost cried, “Why don’t you love your country anymore?”

   The room went silent.  The question was loaded.  He wasn’t only raising a question about our patriotism but about our identity, about our value systems, and most about our relationships with these people who were struggling to have a clue about who we had become.

   Everybody looked at me.  I had the longest hair, I played the guitar, I was a minister’s kid, and I had said I wanted to be a minister.  So obviously I was the one to field this land mine.  Hey, I was a sophomore.  The motto of my college is “Why Not?”  So I forged ahead toward… 

   “I do love my country.  I consider myself a patriot.”  I let that one sink in for effect.  “We are the best educated generation in the history of this nation, because of the schools you have built.  We’ve studied more history and American history than any generation before us.  Thomas Jefferson is one of my heroes.  So is Ben Franklin and George Washington.  These guys were revolutionaries.  Their vision of what this nation could be is revolutionary.  It’s nuts.  It makes room for everybody.  The Bill of Rights is off the wall.  It offers an equal footing to anybody.  They were crazy enough to believe it was possible, not probable, but possible.  It still is nuts.  Jefferson thought we were going to need a good revolution every 20 years or so, just to keep the dream from getting bogged down in the power plays that have defined history since it began.  So, Jefferson was right.  We’re having a revolution.  No guns.  Just Jimi Hendrix.  We’re fighting for your country too, for its soul.  You taught us to do that.  We don’t expect you to approve.  Why should you?  Just listen, listen with your hearts and believe that we’re not totally nuts.  And love us.  We need that.  We’ll grow up.  Then you can retire and let us fight with our kids.”

   Pretty good speech, huh?  Somebody recorded it with one of the old reel to reel machines.  My mother cried.  My father was preaching at another church and asked for prayers for the congregation where the dialogue service was happening.  God listened.  The last line got a laugh.  To this day I have no explanation for the content, except for the Holy Spirit.  It’s what I’ve come to believe, but then?  Gimme a break.  I was a sophomore.  But I guess I was a patriot, even then.  Peace bro’.

   Happy Fourth of July.      

Foundation Stones

   This is Derek Jeter’s last year as a professional baseball player.  This is either of no interest to you or something you were already aware of.  He has played short stop (don’t worry about what that means) for the New York Yankees, won awards for his defensive play, set records for offense, been captain of the team, and in the process set an unusual example of what we would like a sportsman to be.

   Once in a while they show highlights from his career.  There’s one scene of him sprinting after a foul ball across the third base line.  He caught it, but had no chance to slow down.  He ended up diving head first into the stands, fans doing their best to catch him, coming up with a bloody nose and a shiner.  He got a standing ovation. 

   These guys are the elite.  They get paid big bucks to play a game.  They are entertainers, right?  Well, yes and no.  Their games are about working as a team, facing opponents together, backing up each other, putting themselves on the line, their talents, their energy, their commitment to the game, to their team to win together.  In baseball one of the strategies is even called a sacrifice fly.  So, cynical pronouncements aside, the games represent something about us, ideals that we use as foundations for our society. 

   Games are a lot more than amusements.  The games we play and how we play them say an awful lot about who we are and who we aspire to become.  And the people who are icons for us say an awful lot about what we celebrate.  Winning is important in whatever context it happens.  It speaks of excellence and power.  But when a winner also plays ‘the game,’ whatever that game happens to be with a sense of personal humility and integrity, they become more than entertainers.  Mariano Rivera, a pitcher for the same team just retired, a star in his own right said recently in an interview that he wanted everything he did to point to God, whether he won or lost, he wanted everything he did to demonstrate his faith.  Sounds like more than an entertainer to me, more like a stone for a foundation.

   Go team.

Wow!

 Believe it or not, I was actually successful.  I navigated through the Colorado rapids of Blog reality.  Hubris assumes that success is the norm.  Hubris is not part of this scenario.  I  realized recently that success is as possible as a lack there of.  How’s that for a realization?  Fifty-fifty odds aren’t bad are they?